Not all healing is physical
by Amberdreams
Summary: S12E02 coda: Castiel healed their injuries and left them to their own devices. Yet somehow, after everyone should have gone to bed, all three Winchesters are still awake, each dealing with the aftermath in their own way. (Or basically - a fix-it-fic)


**Not all healing is physical**

* * *

Mary sat unmoving in the dim light in her cell for a while after Sam said goodnight. John's journal lay open in front of her but after seeing the military memorabilia and the first few photographs she hadn't been able to turn the pages to see John's journey into a different life; one without her in it. She felt…dammit, how _did_ she feel? In some ways she didn't want to examine too deeply. There was loss layered on loss, interwoven with confusion, fear and anger.

Yes. That was it; that was the one emotion safest and most familiar. She picked at that shining thread and examined it.

She was _angry_.

John was dead and had raised her precious babies to be hunters.

But how could she be angry with him for that? John didn't know any better, because Mary had never told him. No, instead Mary had blithely made a deal for her baby's unborn soul and hadn't even thought to ask the details because John's body had been cooling in her arms and John was the best thing that had ever happened to her. How could she have been so selfish? So stupid?

She wasn't angry with John, not really. She was angry with herself.

God's sister had arbitrarily snatched Mary from wherever she'd been, because Mary was some sort of cure-all for Dean? Mary Winchester was what Dean needed most - that scarred and walled-up man that Mary hardly recognised needed _her_. How was that even possible?

An image flashed before her of Dean's big green eyes lighting up when he saw the pie she'd bought, and with the memory came the same pang in her heart that she'd felt then. For those brief moments he'd been _her_ Dean, the carefree four-year-old whose emotions were all out in the open and whose delight in the small things had been infectious. She'd looked across the table and shared a familiar look with the mystery that was Sam, and seen a reflection of John's fond exasperation in those fox-like hazel eyes.

Mary didn't remember being dead. She didn't know if she'd been in Heaven, or Hell, or in limbo, but in that moment sitting in the strangeness of the bunker, she'd felt homesick beyond belief.

She was on her feet with her hand touching the door handle before she realised it. Then her feet were walking her down the corridor and she deliberately didn't think about where she was going or why. This place with its yellow lights and shiny grey-green tiles reminded her of the county asylum before it closed down. It even had that same smell of disinfectant and dead air. It gave her the creeps, even though Dean had explained all about how heavily warded the place was. How safe she was here.

Well, maybe she didn't want to be _safe_.

She found Dean hiding in the surprisingly pristine stainless steel monstrosity of a kitchen. Her little boy was sitting on the floor, old photographs scattered over his legs like over-large confetti, and beer bottles lined up within easy reach of his right hand. He startled like a frightened deer when he saw her, and scrambled to collect the photos while trying to hide the empties, as if he really was a four year old caught in the act, instead of a thirty seven year old man who was technically older than she was when she died. She didn't like to think how old she was now, because it made her brain hurt.

"Oh stop it," Mary said, equal parts exasperated and amused. She slid her butt down the counter to join him on the floor, flipping the top off one of his bottles with a practiced flip of her wrist. She couldn't help grinning at the look on Dean's face. Shock warred with admiration and a certain wariness that the mother in her wanted to wipe away. She took a long pull at the beer, relishing the cold as the amber liquid slid down her throat. It felt soothing, even though she knew the angel, Castiel, had healed the damage done by that cold-hearted British witch, just like he'd healed her boys. Strangeness on top of strangeness, and yet another reason to savour the kick of the alcohol as it hit her bloodstream.

She deliberately didn't look at the photographs and let Dean pile them up. He carefully set them to one side and raised his bottle in salute.

"Cheers," he said, side-eying her as if he was afraid she'd either disapprove or disappear. She knocked the bottlenecks together. "Cheers, son."

"It's been an interesting few days," she observed, leaning into Dean's warmth gratefully. He tensed for a long second but she held on until at last she felt him relax. He didn't go as far as to put an arm around her, but his sigh and that small smile that crossed his lips was near enough.

"Yeah," he said with a sigh, "it sure has."

 **0x0x0x0**

Sam lay unmoving in the dim light of his cell for a while, caught up in the feel of warm arms wrapped around him, and the unfamiliar flowery scent that lingered on his skin after his brief but heartfelt hug with his mother.

His mother. Sam wanted to empty his mind, stop the merry-go-round of sensations that were spinning so fast they made him dizzy, but it was impossible. This was too much for him to assimilate. Not only was Dean alive, Mary Winchester was too. He touched his healed cheek, pressed fingertips into the place where that British bitch had cut him, and part of him was disappointed there was no pain. Pain was grounding. Pain was an anchor. Pain was proof…of what, Sam wasn't sure any more. Maybe he shouldn't have let Castiel heal him, but he couldn't very well refuse with Dean and his mother watching. They wouldn't have understood the part of Sam that not only wanted the pain to continue, but to see the scars from his torture visible on his body. Sam craved evidence.

He pressed his thumbnail into his cheek, testing the give of the delicate skin below his eye, then stopped. Opening up a cut again would only attract attention, and probably disappoint Castiel. Toni's smiling face mocked him and he sat up abruptly, seized by a sudden agitation. He didn't bother with shoes but strode barefoot back to Mary's room, wanting…he didn't know what exactly. Answers, maybe? Reassurance?

Whatever he was looking for, an empty room wasn't going to help him. He tried to tell himself that Mary hadn't been back long enough to make her presence felt yet. That surely the hairbrush and feminine toiletries were sufficient to show she had been here, that Sam wasn't hallucinating her. He prised his hand off the doorframe with an effort, his ears filling with the thrum of blood as his lurching heart pumped a tidal surge around his body. Panic threatened the edges of his vision with sparks of darkness. He turned abruptly and headed for Dean's room. Irrational fear gripped him. _If Mary wasn't real, then maybe Dean was dead too_.

Maybe Sam wasn't in the Bunker at all but was really tied in that dank cellar with burnt-cold feet and bloody cuts on cheek and torso while a madwoman turned the air blue with a blowtorch and the other woman messed with his mind. Or maybe he was in the cage with Lucifer, and everything he remembered was a lie.

Dean's room was empty too, the door ajar, the memory foam forgetful.

Sam ran.

He ran through the corridors silent as a frightened ghost, into the library, the war room, only to skid to a halt in the kitchen, Dean's domain.

And there Dean was. Sam could just see the stupidly gelled spikes of Dean's hair sticking up, hedgehog-like, over the top of the counter. It could still be an illusion though. A figment of his imagination; or worse, a figment of someone else's. He sidled with exaggerated caution round the edge of the counter only to be halted in his tracks for a second time as he took in the tableau on the floor in front of him.

Mary sat half slumped against Dean's shoulder, long hair mussed up where she was running her fingers though it, twisting it like a little girl. She looked up and up at Sam and giggled. Dean didn't turn his head but he smiled as he threw an unopened beer for Sam to snatch out of mid air.

"Hey," Dean said.

Sam's legs folded under him of their own accord as all the doubt drained out of him faster than cold beer from Dean's bottle. He leant back against the counter and shoved his shoulder against Mary, sandwiching her between her sons and letting her warmth melt through all his frozen layers of worry.

Three bottles were outstretched and met in the middle with a sound like music to Sam's ears.

"To us," he said.

"To family," echoed Dean and Mary.


End file.
